galacticvampire's Reviews (366)

Probably one of the heaviest/most laborious Star Wars novels I've gotten through so far. Not because the plot was necessarily complex, but mostly because the delivery was in chunks of switching points of view that ended up making everything more complicated than necessary. You would get a couple paragraphs narrated by a side character, then change to the protagonist, then jump to one of the antagonists, and then another side character. It was exhausting!
But I really enjoy how the empire as a regime was handled by the narrative. Being target towards a younger audience, Star Wars oftentimes shies away a bit from the brutality of dictatorship, and this aspect really is a central point of this novel. It's not only the corruption and lack of care for the people, or even the somewhat graphic violence and death, that paints the context of a galaxy under the empire, but the straightforwardness and rawness in which the exploitation and decay of a population is portrayed.
Even with the ridiculous and funny moments worth of any Star Wars media (and the Kanan and Hera backstory), what really shines in A New Dawn is the despair from consecutive chaos, devastation and tiranny that really makes you question if there's any victory at all.

I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. The last 100 pages find such a delicate balance between lyricism and plot that I wanted to rate them separately. I enjoyed them a lot. But the middle 100 were so repetitive and shallow that I found myself immensely bored. I think I'm just not enough of a romantic to savor it as it is.

The story is beautifully written, but I was painfully aware the whole time that all these pretty words were saying very little other than how much they love each other for some reason we are never explained. We explore 1001 ways to write poetics about colors and compose love letters, but have to dig for any information about what the hell is going on. (Until those last 100 or so pages that I actually enjoyed besides the prose, wish we had more of that)

Now, I understand that it was The Point. This Is How You Lose The Time War is not a story about the war, is about two people finding love in the midst of it. I just didn't care. At all. I'm very much a plot person unless we have extremely complex characters, which wasn't the case here. This isn't a fault in execution, just an umatched set of style and reader.

This book is really good at being what it wants to be. I would just have liked it better if it was something different.

I'm not gonna lie and say this book (and the series) was average all through. I was engaged, it was interesting, and as a good slow-burn enthusiast, I was invested. The mood of the story is incredibly well done, something I find more and more an important characteristic of self-published books. This amount of self-indulgence akin to fanfiction is something very rarely replicated by books that go through an editorial process.
But the trade-off (here and frequently in similar situations), is a very flawed execution. Oftentimes the plot and pacing jump around like they're not sure what they want to be, characters' motivations and personalities seem inconsistent, and the conclusion is very lackluster. The ending was so jarringly abrupt I was sure my kindle file had lost it's epilogue. (No, releasing a post-canon book of tales does not excuse the lack of proper conclusion)
I think the best description I have for The Captive Prince series is that it certainly is an experience. It requires a specific taste and mood to be appreciated, and an hability to shrug off the flaws and enjoy the ride.

Breaking the second-book curse, Prince's Gambit is the one I enjoyed the most on the trilogy. A lot of the issues I had with the first one didn't make a big appearance here, shifting enough of the dynamic between Laurent and Damen that I finally found them somewhat interesting together.
The camaraderie and slowly growing bond between Damen and the soldiers, as well as a handful of action/fight scenes, are, surprisingly, my favorite points on the book, especially considering that these topics normally don't weight much on my overall opinon of the story.
The romance thankfully evolves to something more enjoyable, Laurent and Damen bickering and mistrusting but rethinking their assumptions about the other results in scenes where the mood changes from comedic to tense in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, that only highlights how their power imbalance could've been better dealt with previously.
It's still a fun read, and I can see potential for an above-average one if the overall execution and delivery were polished.

Very ok. It was entertaining enough, normally a regular 3★. But then you have basically a blanket argument that "slavery bad because this owner very bad. He evil. No. Not this one. This one nice to slaves. See how they happy?" instead of like... slavery being bad as a concept? I would have been happy if it had showed at least a little bit of "it doesn't matter that you treat them well they're still slaves". You can go back to being a fantasy after that, but I believe a hey-remember-this-is fucked-up flag was important. But it never did that, and we're supposed to ignore it.
I like Damen, our main character, quite a lot, actually. He's stupid tho. Very much. And we're supposed to believe he's been training his whole life to become a king.
And then we have Laurent. The idea of Laurent being prejudiced against Damen's people is ok. That he didn't like the other at all when was first gifted to him is also ok. That he is cunning and bitchy and will do any awful thing to survive the court. All fine concepts that form an interesting character. But that the choice to show all of these characteristics led to him getting Damen close to and then actually raped for no real reason is not ok. Not when they're supposed to be together eventually.
The inconsistencies between actually interesting scenes that develop their relationship and some very gratuitous actions that could've very easily been more plot-justified or explained (A lot of this steams, I believe, for it being initially a self-published book, and I recognize that) sum up to a regular result. Overall, a fun read, but suspension of disbelief is righly required to ignore it's problems.

I debated wether or not to give If We Were Villains a full 5 stars. I loved the story, the characters, the prose. I also could predict pretty much every plot point, twist and revelation; and outright starting the book stating that the protagonist ends up in jail but the cop involved doesn't know the full story is probably a big part of it.
As with every dark academia, it's impossible not to compare it with it's genre's founder: The Secret History. If We Were Villains is definitely more accessible and easier to read, focusing more on the characters and each of theirs emotional turmoils than on an intricate plot. The students here feel way more like dramatic and traumatized 20-somethings than the caricatures of obnoxious academics with critical intent from Secret History. They're still obnoxious, but in a way that many young people with loads of talent tend to be.
None of this to say that this book is any less beautiful or interesting. With a simple premise, a lot relies on execution; and the execution is fantastic. Even with a very (very) basic knowledge of Shakespeare and his stories, the atmosphere enchanted me. The theater scenes were so mesmerizing that is easy to forget that I've never actually seen most of these plays before; and I'm sure that with a deeper knowledge on them the experience of reading this book would be even more interesting, as oftentimes the roles they were playing onstage mirroed their interactions on the wings.
If We Were Villains is not a story about a crime, it is a story about the people involved in it. The relationships, conversations through quotes, parallels between scenes and overall emotions portrayed were vivid and enrapturing and I didn't want to let go.

This quote, originally about the inworkings of the circus and the magic system, sums up pretty well how I feel about this book. All the hype around it is about how well crafted it is and the magical setting and the beautiful atmosphere. And here I am like "but. Can't you see that it's just going round and round and nothing else happens?" There's no denying that no matter how lively the carrousel, it never leads you anywhere but in circles.
And it is lively. The tastes, the smells, the tents, the attractions. I could picture every star and every snowflake with beautiful precision, wanted to experience the magic and feel the heat of the bonfire. But caramel popcorn only does so much.
I am not inherently against plotless books. Mechanique, another book about a magical circus that was released in 2011, also doesn't have much of a story; but the author is aware of it. It relies deeply on intricated character studies and interwoven themes. The climax by the end is just a punch of action to hammer the argument it was making all along. I gave it five stars.
None of this happens in The Night Circus. The author wants to pretend really hard that there's this complex plot of competition and whatnot but really I can't tell what message the book was trying to convey. There's never an inch of antagonism or urgency or even rivalry, and the secondary characters that had so much potential feel more like props for the circus tents than actual people. It builds and builds but the payoff never happens.
Erin Morgenstern is an incredible writer, and had she put her cards more on exploring what is the circus and what it means to be part of it, The Night Circus would be truly mesmerizing.

This book is... A lot. There's a bunch of stuff happening, multiple pov changes and a trillion characters. Sometimes this creates an incredible pacing and amusing perspectives for the plot (like the guy giving directions to each party and being clueless about what's happening), sometimes it drags the story longer than it should.
Now, it could be my bias from watching first the Original Series, but I think they dealt with the few issues I had with the book:
1- Crowley and Aziraphele don't interact nearly enough. We are told of these millennial "friendship" but there aren't really many scenes about that.
2- the ending is bit... There? It just happens and that's it.  It's cute and all but not really a great climax to the proportions of the Apocalypse.
I'm giving Good Omens a positive credit here (My enjoyment would be of a 3-3.25, but I'm rounding up to 3.75). Yes, I was a little bored by the book overall, but I had already watched the exact same plot unfold. The events are recreated many times to the letter and I would say that they frequently translated better to visual form. Probably, had I read it first, I would've find it more interesting.

I was scared this book wouldn't live up to it's predecessor. So much was set up, and dealing with such complex topics like power, and interpersonal relationships, and the future of human kind as sustainable system; it was inevitable to be cautious of the argument to be made.

Inevitable, also, to compare with book 1. While I like better the concepts and arguments presented on the first one, in ABFE the execution shines so much brighter that the scales are balanced towards me liking the sequel more.

The Argument: The problems in AART, as sci-fyy as they were, we're more relatable and developed. It was about humans interacting in face of a worldwide phenomenon. Now, with the stakes growing, the subjects of discussion (as well as the previously very nuanced antagonists) turn a bit cartoony. It's still a beautiful ode to the human race and what we are as a community, but I felt that the actual concepts were more simplistic to give space to plot.

The Execution: if before we had an essay, now we have an opera. We finally have the impact Carl caused on the world, not only on April. The multiple perspectives made the world more alive and interesting, even if it took a while to start making sense. The other characters, before, were mere props in April May's play, now they have all the nuance and flaws and insecurities that were lacking on the Argument. For me, it's a great trade-off.

Ultimately, even if this sequel eerd a little more to the side of dystopian and  catastrophic as I would like, it's still an absolutely wonderful story to have, to cherish, and to remember that "The meaning of life is still, as it was, simply other people."

April May is one of the most human characters I have ever read. And that's because she comes across as a, albeit well-intentioned, total shitty person. When you're observing someone uninterrupted by the social filters and from an outside pov this is bound to happen (e.g.: reality shows), but her flaws are dealt with brilliantly to deliver the point.

Yes, this is a sci-fi story. Yes, it has aliens and weird things happening. But that's not what the book is about. This is a social commentary about humanity, about fame and social media and the real people behind the digital ones. April's internet persona quickly becomes more real than the actual April, known by so little compared to the image portrayed that even she dehumanizes her identity to be measured in likes, views and replys.

And it all bleeds Hank Green. It's an interesting experience, knowing much more about an author than that little name on the cover, knowing that so much of it it's written from experience. The ideas about information and violent rhetoric scream louder because I've seen him talk (and care) about it before; the incredibly crafted explanations on chemistry and neuroscience hold more credibility because I'm conscious he either actually knows the subject or made sure it's scientifically accurate. For sure the story tells itself, but knowing the author's background definitely adorns the margins.